Update from my long long 1st post
If you made it through the novel I wrote a couple of months back, I’m here to update. And also ask for advice from those who are farther along in the process. A LOT has happened and changed. My husband has been consistently in therapy and also doing mindful work. He is on medication for his depression and he has been actively trying to fix it. But…. Things have been ROUGH. We’ve had to really have some hard talks and I honestly thought we were irreparable. Our main issues were that he used these cam sites to numb his depression. While using me as his emotional punching bag. And when I found out the extent of what he was doing (we’ve always been very open about our sexual activity. And yes had used porn and even more in our relationship) but to find out he was hiding this from me for so damn long was painful. It brought up a lot of insecurity in our marriage. Like I felt like we had one marriage and I was wrong. But it also forced me to see the cracks that I was choosing to ignore. Like me walking on eggshells because his volatile behavior would cause me to shut down because I have PTSD from childhood trauma. So I would disconnect when he would show any high emotions. Which in turn made him feel alone and it became a cycle. He pops off..I shut down. He feels alone. Pops off. I shut down. (None of this was physical just heightened).
I had to finally tell him that his depression(that I as a co-dependent personality) wasn’t mine to fix and his emotions aren’t mine to regulate. But what I need is him to understand that his feelings led to deception and actions. And I am confronting the actions. Not the feelings.
Fast forward to a couple of Saturdays ago. I explained that I HAD to have room in our relationship for my feelings. Without worrying about how my pain would affect him. That I’m not ok and I’m asking for him to be understanding that there are days that I’m not ok and I can’t be the one to take care of his feelings. I need from him to be able to say he understands and he’s here to support me. The VERY next day and TW for those with abuse triggers…. I was not ok. So I wandered off and was way in my own head. He and our friends came to where I was and he said he was scared of what I was doing (he couldn’t find me. I was totally safe) and I told him I was fine. Just needed to get away for a bit. He had been asking me all day “are we ok? Are you ok to be with me?” And the pressure was way too much. I needed space. I guess I was flippant about it. Mostly because our friends were with us and I don’t like to make a scene. He LOST IT. Began raging. Took a paddle board paddle and went to slam it on the side of our boat and in the process hit me in the face with the other end. His back was to me and he broke it in half. That’s how hard it was. I immediately fell to ground with blood pouring from my lip. It busted it in two places. My friend screamed at him and he saw what he did. I flipped out. PTSD was activated and was hysterical. We got home. I demanded he leave our house. I was hysterical for hours. He went to a hotel. When he came home the next day I told him i understood that it was not intentional. He had told our son it was an accident and that really rocked me. I knew it wasn’t intentional but it wasn’t an accident. My face got hit because of his rage. He couldn’t control himself and I was injured. That is no accident. I told him to pack his bags and find an Airbnb for a month. And he did. We’ve spent the last 10 days living separately but also coming together to talk and see what’s going on. In the process his actions have not been focused on. He spends most of his time working on his inside stuff and I spend most of my time working on trying to work through his actions. I do check his computer (his desktop is linked to his devices) and when I see something I will ask. So far I’ve not found any other things (well I found DuckDuckGo and asked him about that and he said he uses it to test codes. He is a cyber security expert as his career so honestly I could never “detective” enough for his skills. )I was at his Airbnb last weekend and I looked at his iPad. Didn’t find anything and asked him if he has used porn/cam since he’s been at the condo because he said he used it to numb his stress and him living away is extremely stressful. He began to cry and say that I’m never going to trust him. That he’s a pos and he gets emotional because he feels so guilty and shameful. When he cried I shut down. It made me feel once again that I never got the full story. He doesn’t get as emotional when I tell him how bad his emotional dumping and hitting me with a paddle messed me up. So my mind just goes into “what the hell is making him feel so damn guilty?” When he was first found out, he immediately deleted everything. So I never got the chance to really see all that was going on. So of course I’m left with questions. And his reaction to me asking triggers me. We talked the next day. He said he hasn’t used. And feels guilty if he even sees a girl on a movie. That he’s trying to be perfect and he is scared if he’s not that I’m not going to want to stay. I don’t need perfection. I need transparency and honesty and accountability. And to see him doing the work. I feel like he’s really doing the work to mend himself which will mend us. But I don’t feel like I can feel safe until I can feel like he’s really working on mending his actions. ie he can discuss his porn etc without falling apart. It’s a rough road. He’s going to continue to stay at the condo. And I’m at home. And he has stayed here a couple of nights. And I spent one night there. But we really need this space. I’ll continue to look at his stuff. Maybe just because if I don’t find anything I can rest my brain. Even knowing that he can hide stuff better than anyone because of the nature of his skills. But honestly I’m still waiting for him to come clean and say it was worse than he admitted to. Thanks for letting me vent. I know it’s a lot but if any of you have experienced your spouse using it to numb depression, I would love some insight!